Sunny has always been different. She's Nigerian, but was raised in America and has the pale coloring of an albino. And in adolescence, it turns out she's magic, as well. Although magic lets her play soccer in the sun and see wasps that create tiny fantastical scupltures, it also alerts her to grave danger. A magician named Black Hat is mutilating and sacrificing children, and only Sunny and her oha coven can stop him.

I like some components of this book much more than others. The background characters are great, from queenly Chichi to kind Orlu, and the magic is fantastic. When they pick the right juju knife, for instance, it feels like it's part of them. But Sunny herself felt flat to me. Ididn't really get her inner character--and what I did see, I didn't much like. She spends the majority of the final battle crying and telling her friends to give up. And the climactic battle is won with a very unsatisfying deus-ex-machina--Sunny just myseriously and randomly feels a wave of courage knows the exact spell to defeat the scariest Masquerade of them all, that even adult scholar-mages think is unstoppable.